


Far From a Simple Matter

by kateandtheuniverse



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Edwin and Ana get a mention!, F/M, Fluff, Mild Angst, Post Endgame!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateandtheuniverse/pseuds/kateandtheuniverse
Summary: "A simple cup of tea is far from a simple matter."Mary Lou Heiss, The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide~She stopped having tea when Steve disappeared, although the end of food rationing meant better options to get a decent cup of tea. But in a time where every single detail that reminded her of him made her feel sick to her stomach, she found it easier to just avoid as many memories as she feasibly could.





	Far From a Simple Matter

**Author's Note:**

> I want to apologise beforehand if there are any blatant historical inaccuracies in this (please do point them out to me if you find any).

If there was one thing Peggy had learned in all the years she had spent in the United States, it was that finding a proper cup of tea anywhere was a fruitless endeavour. During the war, she had stuck to the bitter, odd-tasting stuff stretched with powdered milk simply because the rationing didn’t really provide many alternatives in hot drinks and she had somehow felt the need to cling to this particular bit of her British identity. After all, could she even still call herself a proper Brit if she stopped having tea entirely? At least that was what she told herself, not wanting to admit that she still often felt foreign here. And especially the occasional hostility towards her made her long for _something_ that connected her to the home she had left behind.

 -

Steve Rogers had been just as bad at making tea as his fellow Americans - too much milk and too much sweetener, but he had made an effort to learn how she liked hers and tried his best to come as close as he could get with the limited supplies at hand.

She stopped having tea when Steve disappeared, although the end of food rationing meant better options to get a decent cup of tea. But in a time where every single detail that reminded her of him made her feel sick to her stomach, she found it easier to just avoid as many memories as she feasibly could.

Initially, Peggy had detested the strong, bitter flavour of black coffee, it tasted like she was drinking a cigarette, biting at her tongue and her throat, and she marvelled at the fact that something with such a wonderfully comforting smell could taste so vile. But it was something different, something belonging to the new Peggy, and she figured she’d just have to make herself get used to it. She could have cut it with milk and sweetener, but that would have meant spending more money than necessary or disposable and somehow she eventually started liking the harsh, liquid wake-up call she received every morning. Besides, it made her more alert and it was definitely easier to come by in cheap diners than tea.

As the coffee became more of a habit, the frequency of longing for a good cup of tea slowly started fading and with it, the pictures of Steve in a rare quiet moment during strategy meetings at the SSR, heaping powdered milk and too much sweetener into a cup and handing the piping hot drink to her with an affectionate smile.

 -

The first time Peggy visited the Jarvis home, they invited her to tea and she almost started crying right there at the table because a tidal wave of nostalgia hit her with the first sip of proper English Breakfast tea in what felt like forever.

 _The war truly is over,_ she thought, suddenly feeling inexplicably tired and not just because the tea contained less caffeine than the coffee she had accustomed to.

Edwin and Ana sent her home with a package of PG Tips Edwin would not tell Peggy the origin of and she didn’t really want to know how he had come by actual English tea and how much it must have cost him (or Howard, whom she suspected was the original purchaser of the loose leaf). She hid the package in her kitchenette cupboard, behind a half-empty box of crackers and a bag of flour, deliberately avoiding to think about why she felt the need to bury this particular remnant of the past so far back on the shelf.

 -

After Steve’s miraculous return to her life, Peggy’s coffee-intake doubled, partly because she feared it was all a dream she might wake up from any moment and partly because the coffee-habit steadied her nerves. She was living in a constant fear of not being awake enough to take it all in.

One morning, shortly after his return, Peggy entered the kitchen in the exact moment Steve pulled out the packet of PG tea from the cupboard.

“Considering that you’re English, it was much harder to find tea in your kitchen than I imagined”, he teased playfully and then pointed to the box in his hand, “Alright if I open this?”

Peggy nodded absentmindedly, as much in awe of his presence in her flat as she had been ever since he had first reappeared at her doorstep, rose-bouquet in hand. He started preparing two cups and the kettle and Peggy found herself staring at his hands, completely mesmerised by such a mundane task, simply because it was Steve doing it.

_Steve, in her flat, in her kitchen, using her cups and her tea._

“You do know that technically you’re not supposed to put the milk in first, don’t you? Weakens the tea.”

She couldn’t help pointing it out, a bit of that inane British tea snobbiness returning out of nowhere.

“Remnant of the powdered milk era, I guess”, Steve retorted nonchalantly but stopped himself before pouring the milk into the second cup.

Instead, he reached for the still unopened package of English Breakfast, momentarily startled as he found himself suddenly faced with the task of preparing loose leaf tea.

“It’s not in tea bags”, he blurted out sheepishly, which made Peggy chuckle.

“So? Don’t tell me they don’t use loose leaf tea anymore in the future.”

“I mean, they do, but...I don’t”, he finished weakly, clearly embarrassed that he was failing at such a simple thing as tea preparation.

“Come on, future-man, it’s not sorcery”, she laughed and took the packet from his hands.

She rummaged through her drawers to dig out a tea egg and dipped it in the tea package to fill one half. As the kettle started whistling, she took a small teapot from another cupboard, placed the infuser inside and poured the water in.

 _Still comes naturally,_ she thought sarcastically.

Steve, who had been watching her as intently as she had watched him before, had evidently noticed something shifting in her expression because he asked, “What, are you internally chiding me for not being loose leaf competent?”

“No, it’s just - I actually haven’t done this in a while”, she explained, not taking her eyes off her own hand that was stirring the tea egg in the pot, causing swirls of dark brown to slowly tint the entirety of the water.

“Margaret Carter, don’t you tell me you’ve gone full-on American while I was gone!”

He said it lightheartedly, in a half-sentence as if it was nothing, but in the short silence afterwards, the full weight of what he had said seemed to sink in.

_While I was gone._

Glum memories of the past year and a half, of lonely nights, of grief and loss and trying to move on pushed their way to the surface. Peggy deliberately wiped the memories away and tried to focus on the fact that Steve was here _now_ , with no intention of leaving anytime soon and the fact that it was all going to be fine.

“Your terrible concoctions from the war have permanently turned me off of tea, I’m afraid”, she quipped in the same lighthearted tone that Steve had used before and the brief moment of tension resolved.

Peggy removed the infuser from the pot and carelessly dropped it in the sink, then she gestured for Steve to go ahead with pouring the tea.

“Let’s see if your tea making skills have improved at all since you last made me one”, she kept teasing, feeling reminded of scenes from their time together in the war so much, it squeezed her heart painfully.

It was such an odd feeling, the hurt and the happiness, the longing and the ecstasy all compressed into one enormous ball of emotions, whirling around inside her heart and her mind - the rational part of her was trying to piece the puzzle together while the emotional part was riding a merry-go-round ever since he had come back.

“I feel watched”, Steve mock-whined but still proceeded to pour the dark liquid in both of the cups, adding milk to the one that had still been missing it and taking the packet of saccharine out of the cupboard, eyeing it with raised eyebrows.

“Sugar still on rations then? I haven’t seen this stuff in...well, years.”

“That’s more of a leftover, I don’t really need sugar all that much.”

She had exclusively had black coffee for the better part of a year and she had never been much of a baker. With the level of sweetness she remembered Steve taking his tea though, she really ought to invest in stocking up on some sugar soon.

-

The tea tasted almost as horrible as the wartime equivalent, way too much milk and too sweet, with Steve not being used to the sweetening properties of saccharine anymore. But Peggy savoured every last sip. It was her and Steve, in her small apartment, cozily having a cup of tea together and nothing else really mattered.

It felt intimate to share this seemingly insignificant moment of togetherness, one of many more to come, if they were lucky, but special and unique now because it was still so fresh. There was so much meaning attached to these two tea cups, it felt almost ceremonial - the sign of a new beginning. Peggy knew that this feeling would subside eventually, moments like this turning into normality, and she was glad that they would. Because it meant that Steve was still there, here with her in her - in _their_ kitchen, making endless cups of awfully sweet tea.

It might have been impossible to find a proper cup of tea anywhere in this country, but if this was the alternative, she was more than willing to compromise.


End file.
